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Dec. 18, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
31:45
Pardon Me? - December 17th, Hour 2
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Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, it is getting louder and louder.
It seems more inevitable by the day that Joe Biden will move forward with a whole bunch of preemptive pardons.
He's had a lot of pushback on the pardon that he gave his son.
He gave, what, over 1,500 commutations.
You know, even this judge in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that was literally sending people to a for-profit place for rehabilitation, I guess.
And another guy that, you know, $53 million in Indiana that he got out of a town of 15,000 people.
Not sure why that person got it.
But I would expect a lot of people, you know, the names we keep hearing a lot about.
Liz Cheney, the GOP has issued a criminal referral for Liz Cheney.
We'll get into some of the details of that in just a minute.
We have now evidence Tom Massey put out that the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, he claims, lied to him under oath about whether confidential human sources were at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
And in fact, Garland denied that that was the case.
Is he going to be up for a preemptive pardon?
You keep hearing the name Anthony Fauci.
You keep hearing about Joe Biden's brother and other family members.
You have Betty Thompson, also the January 6th committee.
He's open.
He wants a pardon.
Bill Clinton saying he'd love a preemptive pardon for his wife.
So I don't know.
It looks like they're going to be handing him out in droves.
But remember, Joe Biden was the one that said he wouldn't even give Hunter a pardon.
So listen.
Your son Hunter is on trial, and I know that you cannot speak about an ongoing federal prosecution.
But let me ask you, will you accept the jury's outcome, their verdict, no matter what it is?
Yes.
And have you ruled out a pardon for your son?
Yes.
This is going to serve the time that the president would not pardon or commute the sentence for his son, Hunter.
I want to make sure that that is not going to change over the next six months.
The president's state of the world.
It's still a no.
It's still an will always be a no.
It's still a no.
It will be a no.
It is a no.
And I don't have anything else to add.
To the question regarding the family, I'm extremely proud of my son, Hunter.
He has overcome an addiction.
He's one of the brightest, most decent men I know.
And I am satisfied that I'm not going to do anything.
I said I abide by the jury decision.
I will do that.
And I will not pardon him.
Well, he did.
And now the list for requested pardons from Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson, Anthony Fauci, and the list goes on.
I'm sure the other Biden family members as well, and Joe might want to consider one for himself, and it's pretty unbelievable.
Anyway, here to weigh in on all of this is Brett Tolman is back with us, Executive Director of Right on Crime, former U.S. Attorney.
Greg Jarrett is with us, Fox News legal analyst, best-selling author.
All right.
Well, he said he wasn't going to pardon Hunter, but we keep hearing that they're going to pardon a whole bunch of people.
And what are your thoughts?
Is Merritt Garland now added to the list?
Is Liz Cheney now that a criminal referral is official from the GOP?
Is she now on the list?
Is this why Benny Thompson said publicly that he would love a preemptive pardon?
Greg?
Yeah.
Yes, to all of the above.
And the number of times that Joe Biden lied about it, you just played them all, is really breathtaking.
And this idea of preemptive pardons underscores, doesn't it, Sean, the lawlessness of the Biden administration and his many political allies that you've just named?
It stinks of corruption.
It debases the law.
And the fact that Biden is even considering it is really quite offensive.
You know, the pardon provision in Article 2 of the Constitution, it contemplated crimes actually committed, not crimes for which a person has not even been indicted or investigated.
That's not what the framers intended.
There really is no legitimate authority over unidentified offenses.
How can a president pardon someone for something he's not even aware of?
Well, he can't.
That's illegal.
Well, you're the constitutional attorney, though.
I mean, my reading and my understanding of it, the power of the pardon is absolute.
And if it's preemptive versus, you know, what you're saying post-conviction or post-even criminal charge, does it really make a difference?
does that authority really not exist for a president what i'm saying is that it's illogical and it's anathema to the kind of system of justice that our founders saying it's unethical but is it unconstitutional I'm not so sure that that would be ruled unconstitutional.
We don't know the answer because it's never been challenged.
The pardon provision, as you correctly state in the Constitution, is actually silent on that.
It's simply declarative.
It doesn't say, you know, the only other preemptive pardon was Gerald Ford's blanket pardon of Nixon for any and all unidentified crimes.
Was it valid?
We don't know because it was never challenged.
Yes, it's a factual precedent of history, but it is not a legal one.
And I just wonder that if wholesale preemptive pardons given out to political allies like party favors and Christmas candy were challenged, might the Supreme Court set reasonable limits?
They might.
Yeah, what's your take on this, Brett Tolman?
What is your take on it?
Yeah, I think the discussion is one that many have had.
And remember, Sean, that it was the Democrats who said, who ranted and raved about accusing Trump when he was leaving office that he was going to do the same thing.
And they had all the talking points.
And now they're silent.
And so I understand what Greg's saying.
And I think it's true that the framers didn't contemplate or anticipate it, but there's nothing that limits it.
And I think if a Supreme Court is reviewing it, I think the Supreme Court says it can be done.
Because there's no limitation on the pardon power that's not written in the Constitution, and we've seen there is a precedent for a preemptive use of it.
What is so offensive and what the American people need to focus on is why is he doing it?
And what happened when he was told, hey, by the Office of the Pardon Attorneys, he was told, let's vet all of these more closely.
Let's actually dig into the cases.
And the White House refused to do so.
And the reason they did is because they just want the image of him giving more clemencies and more pardons than any other president because they've believed that that would be somewhat of his legacy.
And it's offensive to any of us that have been working on clemencies and working in this area of the law.
Why do I expect that this preemptive pardon pardons are more likely than not, Greg Jarrett?
I think they're all coming.
I mean, for example, we have Congressman Lautermilk releasing an interim report on January 6th that issued a criminal referral to investigate evidence regarding Liz Cheney that she tampered with witnesses while she was co-chair of the January 6th committee.
And he identifies a number of laws that he wants the FBI to investigate and says that federal law was likely broken by the select committee.
And anyway, it revealed that the former congresswoman tampered with a witness by secretly communicating with the witness.
I know who it is, but I'm not going to mention it out of, I guess, fairness to that person because that person has not been named or has not been referred.
But anyway, and they cite 18 USC 1512.
And similarly, the Federal Bureau of Investigation must also investigate Cheney for violating 18 U.S.C. 1622, which prohibits any person from procuring another person to commit perjury.
And, quote, based on the evidence obtained by this subcommittee, perjury was in fact committed, and there were lies told under the oath to the select committee.
Do you think that's real?
Oh, I do think it's real.
And I read Lautermilk's report, and it's pretty compelling evidence of witness tampering as well as supporting perjury.
And by the way, in this particular case, he went in this prime time Hollywood-produced extravaganza with a predetermined outcome.
They actually had testimony from the individual involved in the incident, and this had to do with the person that was driving Donald Trump on January 6th.
And the question was whether he had tried to commandeer the vehicle, and the driver said that never happened.
Right.
And much of that was suppressed.
So, you know, we knew at the time it was a charade, and now we know the true ugliness of that charade thanks to a congressional investigation, which tells me that the incoming Department of Justice needs to take a serious look at it.
Your previous question was: you know, will he actually grant these preemptive pardons to all of his political allies and supporters?
The only one that I'm pretty certain he's going to issue is for his brother James, who was knee-deep in the suspected influence peddling schemes in which, you know, 100%.
What about himself and what about other family members that benefited financially?
Well, he may do that as well.
He may do it for every single member of the Biden family, particularly those who received what the Oversight Committee has said were payouts from foreign sources, principally China and Ukraine and elsewhere.
So, you know, I think Jonathan Turley made a very good point today in his column in the New York Post.
The media and Democrats told Americans if Trump's elected, it's the end of democracy.
Opponents will be, Trump opponents will be locked up.
Well, now it looks like democracy will survive.
And, you know, Trump insists he won't seek retaliation.
So to keep the phony narrative going, Biden's going to issue these preemptive pardons so that media and Dems can lie once more and claim his pardon saved democracy.
That may sound cynical, but cynicism is the foundation of Biden politics.
All right, quick break.
We'll come right back.
We'll continue.
We'll get to your calls coming up.
800-941-Sean as we continue.
All right, we continue now our legal analysis.
Brett Tolman, Greg Jarrett, on the issue of preemptive pardons and who might need one.
If you really want to clean up the weaponization of the Department of Justice, if you really want to clean it up, those people that did abuse power probably should be held accountable.
Then this way, new people going into the future will know that if they abuse power, that one day there might be justice coming their way.
That would be one way to clean it out.
I don't know how you otherwise prevent it from ever happening again.
Let me go to Tom Massey, and he pointed out in his ex-post that Merrick Garland, he claims, lied to him under oath.
We now know from the Inspector General's report that there were confidential human sources at the Capitol on January 6th.
And Massey asked Merrick Garland directly about it, and he lied.
Listen.
I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5th and January 6th.
Can you tell us without talking about particular incidents or particular videos, how many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6th, whether they agitated to go into the Capitol, and if any of them did.
So I'm not going to violate this norm of the rule of law.
I'm not going to comment on an investigation that's ongoing.
On that video, that was your answer to a question to me two years ago when I said how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 5th and January 6th and agitating in the crowd to go into the Capitol and how many went into the Capitol.
Can you answer that now?
I don't know the answer to that question.
Oh, last time you don't know how many there were or there were none.
I don't know the answer to either of those questions.
If there were any, I don't know how many.
I don't know whether there are any.
I think you may have just perjured yourself that you don't know that there were any.
You want to say that again?
That you don't know that there were any?
I have no personal knowledge of this matter.
Wow.
What's your take on that, Brett?
Well, let me say, I hope that President Biden does grant all these preemptive pardons because it's going to be the same result as all the lawfare that they've engaged in.
The American people are going to say, oh, that person's guilty, that person's guilty, that person's guilty, and they're just protecting their own.
And they're tired of Washington, D.C. They're tired of all of that.
And they sent a really strong message that they don't want a double standard.
And right now, the only double standard that we're seeing is on the Democrat side.
Are there people that need to be investigated?
Yes.
Unfortunately, qualified immunity has been strengthened to the point we can't hold a lot of these bureaucrats responsible.
We have to make changes to the law in order to pursue them in most criminal cases.
But that doesn't mean we can't get the value of investigating them, you know, because they deserve it and making them plead the fifth or making them make those decisions or making Joe Biden issue a peremptive pardon.
The American people then say, okay, we actually know what happened.
Greg, appreciate it.
Brett, appreciate you as well.
Thank you both for being with us.
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I want to remind you about our friends that are suffering desperately in Israel.
They're still fighting a seven-front war.
President Trump did mention he had a conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu, which is good news because help is on its way, but it's still 35 days away.
And I feel very confident that the message is going to be heard loud and clear.
There will be a new sheriff in town.
But in the meantime, you have tens and tens of thousands of Israelis that have been displaced in this holiday season.
They don't have homes.
They've been chased out of their homes, rockets being fired into their communities every day.
And, you know, it's just been tough.
And that's why we have proudly partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, especially for the holiday season.
And for them, it's a time of fear, uncertainty.
And during this holiday season, many living through the war all throughout the Holy Land, they're grieving the loss of loved ones.
And we can't let them feel forgotten.
And they need bare necessities.
They need shelter.
They need food.
They need water.
They need medicines.
They need basic nourishment.
And that's where hopefully your gift this holiday season will come in.
And you will give the gift of hope and answered prayers for so many.
Now, the IFCJ is an amazing organization.
And I completely support them.
And I hope you'll join us and go to their website, supportifcj.org, supportifcj.org.
You can give them a call.
It's 888-488-IFCJ, 888-488-IFCJ, and help our friends in Israel.
But certainly help is on the way.
One of the things that I think I'm most excited about is the Department of Government Efficiency, Doge, as they call it, and the fact the idea, and why does this matter to me so much?
They're pledging to cut $2 trillion in federal spending.
And don't think it's going to be easy.
The resistance is going to be fierce against the bureaucratic state.
And I'm just warning you.
You see, for example, the Biden administration, as part of their sabotage, did this five-year deal with the Social Security Administration and the AFGE to allow tens and tens of thousands of federal workers to remain in this hybrid work arrangement where they can telework through 2029.
Well, that's not part of the plan.
The Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, have said to federal employees, prepare to show up for work.
Like everybody else in America shows up for work.
There are some people that have remote jobs, but in a post-COVID world, most people now are back showing up at work and show up or you're going to lose your job.
And many of these people will lose their jobs anyway.
However, this is another way that Biden and Harris are trying to sabotage the incoming Trump administration.
There is a congressman, Eric Burleson from Iowa, spoke about a continuing resolution saying it's shameful that people who celebrate Doge or the Department of Government Efficiency are going to vote for another billion dollars to be added to the deficit.
Anyway, here's what this congressman said.
So what are your thoughts on this year?
Have you seen the tech?
It's a total dumpster fire.
I think it's garbage.
This is what Washington, D.C. has done.
This is why I ran for Congress to try to stop this.
And sadly, this is happening again.
I think that it's shameful that people that celebrate Doge coming in, I can't, and yet we're going to vote for another billion dollars to be added to the deficit.
And so it's ironic.
What is this New York speaker talk to the future?
Personally, I'm disappointed.
I think that he can do better.
He can communicate better.
The fact that we haven't seen the language today and we're supposed to vote on it this week is unacceptable.
Now, Congresswoman Victoria Sparks out of Indiana said, I will stay as a registered Republican, but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see the Republican leadership in Congress is all about governing.
I don't need to be involved in circuses.
I'd rather spend more of my time helping at Doge and at Tom Massey to save our Republic, as was mandated by the American people.
And she is going deep in the paint and saying, you know what?
I'm sorry.
This matters.
This is real.
We have nearly $40 trillion in debt.
I think one way, and by the way, we do have money we have to spend.
Social Security, Medicare, they're headed towards insolvency.
It's going to have to be dealt with.
Money's going to have to be allocated.
They raided the lockbox.
They stole it.
And the other area that's going to need, well, at least reappropriation of monies and elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse, but we've got a gap of vulnerability in terms of the military technology that will represent modern warfare, which these wars are no longer going to be fought.
You know, on battlefields, they're going to be fought in air-conditioned offices of people and people pushing buttons.
We better be prepared for that as well.
So that's going to take a lot of money.
And we're going to have to build a border wall.
That's going to cost probably billions by the time it's all said and done.
But it's something we have to do.
And we have to deport people.
That's not going to be cheap either.
Anyway, Congresswoman Victoria Sparks is with us.
How are you?
Good to talk to you, Sean.
Thank you for bringing attention to this issue.
Well, first of all, I'm dead set against taxes.
That'll hurt economic growth.
Economic growth will bring more revenue into the government, number one.
Number two, if we do become energy dominant, a top piece of Donald Trump's platform, that will help offset a lot of the monies that I know that I've identified that are going to have to be spent.
Do you agree with me on spending on the military, shoring up Social Security and Medicare from insolvency and building the wall?
Of course.
And we need to have money to actually serve the people for the causes that the government should provide.
But we cannot continue what we're doing right now to give money left and right and really just fraud and abuse in the system.
And I think Yelan and Vivek are actually pretty conservative to say just a two-trillion.
There is way more fraud like that just in healthcare.
We have trillions of offsets that truly overbilling all of the system and given to large oligopolies.
And, you know, it's given left and right this money where people's quality of health care is going down and prices are hyperinflated.
I mean, this is really becoming a destructive for our economy.
When we run out of money, we will not help for the causes that we need to spend money on and serve the people.
And I think this is a very serious discussion.
But I'll be honest with you, Congress hadn't had this discussion for a long time, now for decades.
We abandon our duty and just have talking points and messaging bills.
And people are fed up with that.
I agree with you that people are fed up with it.
So how do you go about slashing?
And what I like the most about this is, to me, it's a return to the vision of our framers and our founders, which is limited government, greater freedom.
And you've had this non-stop mission creep of radical socialism.
And whether we want to admit it or not, we have adopted programs and involvement in government that I think we don't need any involvement in at all in our day-to-day lives.
So I think there is a lot to cut for sure.
I mean, there's going to be a lot of low-hanging fruit.
But then I think when you get to the nitty-gritty, what do people want under their government?
What does government do well?
How are your local schools?
I'd give a lot of local school districts an F, especially in big blue cities that have been run by Democrats for decades.
I'd give safety and security in big cities, big F too.
I don't think they're keeping people safe and secure.
I think Obamacare has been a disaster.
I think that the fact that they've raided the coffers of the Social Security Trust Fund and Medicare, and they've misappropriated so many billions, if not trillions, of dollars over the years is unconscionable.
And then we have this debt that we've accumulated that we're passing on to our kids and grandkids.
It's got to stop.
Right, you're right.
And it's a fiscal calamity coming up that we will not have money to provide core functions.
But it's really a fault of Congress.
And unfortunately, Congress has not been its duty to the American people.
And I'm glad to see people like Ilan and Vivek and President Trump that actually want to keep promises to the people and go after fraud and abuse and have the backbone not to be afraid.
The challenge is if this doesn't go through Congress, the swamp will recover in four years and going to be business as usual.
So Congress needs to keep its promises to the people and not to be afraid to deliver on our promises.
Otherwise, we're not worth to be here.
And we don't have that courage anymore.
This is institutions where founding fathers were courageous, were willing to sacrifice their lives and fortune, now turning into circus.
And this bunch of clowns doing presentations and posting on social media.
That's not what people hired us to do.
And we need to keep our promises because I'll be honest with you, American people gave my party one more chance to deliver.
If not, we're going to have Marxists prevail.
And they're going to take over healthcare and other industry.
And that's going to be the fault of this Congress because we have no excuses.
Well, I think you have no excuses.
What do you do with what Eric Burleson was saying when he said it's shameful that people that celebrate Doge are going to vote for another billion dollars added to the deficit?
What do you do in the short term?
Well, listen, it's a hypocrisy, right?
You know, at least Johnny Sanders has his socialists, right?
He's honest about that.
And we are lying to the American people.
But we have a mechanism.
Next Congress, no excuses.
We control the Senate, we control the House, and we control the presidency.
You know, we have reconciliation, which allows us to have, you know, with 50 votes plus JD1 for 51 to be able to pass legislation.
So if Republicans grow the backbone and back up President Trump and his policy and Dodge, we can put some serious reforms to help the growth of the economy, to have good policy, to help with spending, to have energy policy, to have health care policy, to deal with our debt.
Can put it in the code, which will have significant effects for innovation and growth of economy.
And Republicans have no excuses, but we need to have courage.
And we need to put down pressure, bottom-up pressure on elected officials to put their money where mouth is.
Quick break.
We'll come right back.
We'll continue more with Indiana Congresswoman Victoria Spartz on the other side, 800-941 Sean on number as we continue.
Now, Indiana Congresswoman Victoria Sparts is with us.
We're going to start out.
Republicans will have, I guess, a one or two seat majority just to start out because of the three appointments that Donald Trump has made in terms of Mike Waltz and others that he appointed to positions within his cabinet, etc.
So it's going to take a while to fill those congressional seats.
And I just heard you say, and I read what you said on X, that you're not that interested in being on any committee at all.
And while you caucus with Republicans, it's not that big a deal or that important to you.
Why would you not want to be on any committees?
Well, listen, you know very well, Sean, that committee is just raising fact checks.
Unfortunately, committees are not doing the job.
Committees just you put there and will keep you hostage to make sure that you vote with leadership and going to be a puppet and talking head and do your presentations.
Oh, if not, we will not put you on this committee and then you get fact checks.
You don't have to vote.
You get to vote any way you want.
And if they're going to threaten you with that, just come on this program and we'll put pressure on them not to do it.
I mean, why not go on, say, the House Judiciary Committee with Jim Jordan or work with the people that we do know, like, and trust?
I mean, I think there's, or maybe you can work in the Ways and Means Committee and work on tax laws in this country.
Well, listen, unfortunately, you know, if you know what to do and if you're highly qualified, they're not going to put you committees that matter, right?
This is how this place works.
You know, if you really know what you're doing, they want to put people in the committees that don't know what to do.
And that's why we have a problem like that.
That's why I need to work with people that want to get stuff done and help President Trump to deliver, not to just do messaging.
That's how this stuff works.
Unfortunately, the things are not decided in committees.
It's all presentations and showmanships.
And, you know, it should be changed.
But if we want to change it, we need to structurally change.
We need to start doing authorization.
I offer speaker to set up subcommittees on authorization.
We have been over 3,000 programs not authorized.
We send blank checks.
He doesn't want to do it.
We need to have a working group to figure out some policy.
He doesn't want to do it.
We are so deep in the holes.
They need to have structural changes to get out of it.
And he doesn't want to do it.
So I don't need to be a talking head.
If the committees don't matter and they're going to still come all this from a speaker's office, don't waste my time.
At least I will work with people that care and try to help them to deliver these policies for the people.
Have you spoken with Speaker Johnson?
Oh, I spoke many times with him.
Believe me, I do a lot of conversations before I make a decision.
And I honestly didn't plan to make a public statement.
I just disagree that Republicans are not willing to govern.
But unfortunately, in D.C., everything becomes public.
So I have to make a statement about that.
But if my Republic are not willing to deliver next Congress and help President Trump to deliver and help Divik and Alan to deliver and other appointments, people, then we are not going to be able to govern and will not be able to actually save this Republic.
And they tried to push this stuff like in February.
You cannot do that.
They try to jam conservatives to force a bunch of slush funds and tax cuts in February so they can intimidate you with, oh, you're not going to vote for the border.
They don't even want to support what Freedom Caucus said, that we need to have two separate reconciliations because we're not ready.
We will not even have appointments already approved in February.
We're not ready to put some policies in the code.
So it has to be two reconciliations.
We have to have a plan.
We cannot just overnight develop these plans.
And we have to be serious about actually these plans make sense.
Are they good for the economy and for the people?
Victoria Sparks, thank you so much for being with us.
And we'll watch closely what you plan to do next.
We appreciate it.
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